1917—1918

V I. War-Weariness
(Simbirsk: a peasant province)
+ betrayals of commanders (as had occurred in the Great French Revolution).

V II. And meanwhile the military situation decides,
decides the war (civil war).
All forces to war!
All forces against the Czechoslovaks.
Betrayal and treachery of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

V III. What is the struggle about? What is at stake?

a) Restoration of the power of landlords and capitalists
b) Restoration of the front, drawing [us] into
i m p e r i a l i s t   w a r.
The Czechoslovak front (15 million rubles)
Murmansk.
Alekseyev
and
Baku
Turkestan.

Class position: kulak uprisings; decisive
b.
battle with the bourgeoisie. The poor and the toilers versus the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat and the poor: whom will [they] attract.
. . . F o o d   s u p p l i e s . . .

War-weariness: betrayals of commanders;
the
surrender of Simbirsk (examples of similar instances occurred in the Great French Revolution: no grounds for despair).

c. Military situation: the military outcome decides.
d. Restore the front:
submission
to the imperialists of the entire
country.

a) Power of landlords and capitalists
b) Draw forces
into imperialist war and into
imperialist slavery.

1 V. I. Lenin delivered a speech on July 29, 1918 (see Works, 4th ed., vol. 28, pp. 1—17).

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# LETTER TO A. A. IOFFE

August 3/16, [1918]

Comrade Ioffe,

Everything you write in your recent letters is absurd to the point of the supernatural.

To pursue the "previous" policy of inseparability from the Entente after Onega¹ — that is ridiculous. One cannot make a lady with a baby innocent again.

It is equally ridiculous to call intervention or aid — what we are continuing is precisely maneuvering, allowing the Germans to take what has a l r e a d y   b e e n   t a k e n by the Entente and thereby making difficult and prolonging the Anglo-American-Japanese strangulation of Russia.

Not knowing the facts and having failed to think them through, you have fallen into error with your memorandum and so forth. If you wish to insist on it, submit a statement to the Central Committee. Until your statement to the Central Committee, until the Central Committee accepts your resignation, until it sends you a replacement, until his arrival, you will of course, as a party member (as you yourself write), fulfill your duty.

Greetings! Lenin

1 This refers to the occupation of Onega by English troops on July 31, 1918.

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# MEMORANDUM TO THE DEPARTMENT
OF
STATE TREASURY

August 6, 1918

To the Department of State Treasury

**Resolution**

The Council of People's Commissars at its session of August 3 of the present year has resolved:

to allocate to the People's Commissariat of Agriculture a credit from the funds of the State Treasury in the amount of 50,000,000 rubles (fifty million rubles) for the provision of loans to local executive committees for the needs of land departments, as well as for the organization and support of agricultural communes.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

For the Manager of Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars
N. Gorbunov

Printed from the original
signed by V. I. Lenin